Most cultures have some form of mystical experience. People outside of that culture generally assume that the experiences of yogis, mullahs, vodun priests, santeros, etc. are not real evidence of the supernatural. Research into such phenomena has been conducted for centuries, with no sign that there is any not-natural explanation.

When a "mystical experience" is indistinguishable to the observer from a lie, a mistake, a common brain phenomena or some form of insanity, why assume that the mystical explanation --the one with the least evidence-- is the real one?

I do not think it is insanity so much as our own consciousness or minds at work trying to fill in blanks. They are anomalies though.

RegardsDL

Like I said, a common brain phenom., etc. would be our "minds at work trying to fill in blanks". We know that our minds do this kind of thing all the time--look at any book or website on optical illusions. What is the reason for assuming that there is something beyond one of the normal explanations? I am not being sarcastic or rhetorical. I really want to know.

Most cultures have some form of mystical experience. People outside of that culture generally assume that the experiences of yogis, mullahs, vodun priests, santeros, etc. are not real evidence of the supernatural. Research into such phenomena has been conducted for centuries, with no sign that there is any not-natural explanation.

When a "mystical experience" is indistinguishable to the observer from a lie, a mistake, a common brain phenomena or some form of insanity, why assume that the mystical explanation --the one with the least evidence-- is the real one?

I do not think it is insanity so much as our own consciousness or minds at work trying to fill in blanks. They are anomalies though.

RegardsDL

Like I said, a common brain phenom., etc. would be our "minds at work trying to fill in blanks". We know that our minds do this kind of thing all the time--look at any book or website on optical illusions. What is the reason for assuming that there is something beyond one of the normal explanations? I am not being sarcastic or rhetorical. I really want to know.

So do I but some things cannot be known. At least not at this point in time.

I want to know why you assume that you can eliminate the possibility of lie, dream, illusion or mistake, and go with the least possible option-- contact with the Cosmic Consciousness, a real supernatural event. What criteria are you using to judge what you experienced as the real deal CC? How are you ruling out the things that we have lots of concrete evidence for in favor of something with no concrete evidence?

I want to know why you assume that you can eliminate the possibility of lie, dream, illusion or mistake, and go with the least possible option-- contact with the Cosmic Consciousness, a real supernatural event. What criteria are you using to judge what you experienced as the real deal CC? How are you ruling out the things that we have lots of concrete evidence for in favor of something with no concrete evidence?

I follow the evidence.

If my mind lied to me, I would not know it. I do know telepathy is real as I have a victim that will testify to it. My wife.

I do not do supernatural and have explained that this is a natural phenomenon.

If is not the least possible option. A mind lying to itself is more weird than finding another mind.

<sinp>If is not the least possible option. A mind lying to itself is more weird than finding another mind.

Your bias is clouding your thinking...

Making these two statements in such close proximity to each other is even weirder as you appear to readily accept that minds can be confused or mistaken and even attribute the confusion or mistake to the commonplace word "bias" whilst in your former statement you say that it is weird that such an event can occur.

If my mind lied to me, I would not know it. I do know telepathy is real as I have a victim that will testify to it. My wife.

I find it suspicious that you call her a victim. If I got inside my partner's head, she would not consider herself a victim.

I find it even more suspicious that he hasn't gone straight to a research lab and BEGGED for the opportunity to demonstrate this ability.

But I've got him on ignore - maybe he actually explained somewhere why he's here telling US about it (over the internet no less ) rather than telling, well, pretty much anyone to whom he could actually prove it.

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“Be skeptical. But when you get proof, accept proof.” –Michael Specter

If my mind lied to me, I would not know it. I do know telepathy is real as I have a victim that will testify to it. My wife.

I find it suspicious that you call her a victim. If I got inside my partner's head, she would not consider herself a victim.

Ask her and yourself.

Regardless, an assault is the way my wife described the experience. I can see it as there is both pain and pleasure involved. She would have noted the pain more as there would have been little pleasure for her.

<sinp>If is not the least possible option. A mind lying to itself is more weird than finding another mind.

Your bias is clouding your thinking...

Making these two statements in such close proximity to each other is even weirder as you appear to readily accept that minds can be confused or mistaken and even attribute the confusion or mistake to the commonplace word "bias" whilst in your former statement you say that it is weird that such an event can occur.

I did. My wife as my victim to testify. That is all the evidence I need. I don't care of the evidence against.

Well, someone definitely has bias that clouds their thinking around here...

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

I want to know why you assume that you can eliminate the possibility of lie, dream, illusion or mistake, and go with the least possible option-- contact with the Cosmic Consciousness, a real supernatural event. What criteria are you using to judge what you experienced as the real deal CC? How are you ruling out the things that we have lots of concrete evidence for in favor of something with no concrete evidence?

I follow the evidence.

If my mind lied to me, I would not know it. I do know telepathy is real as I have a victim that will testify to it. My wife.

I do not do supernatural and have explained that this is a natural phenomenon.

If is not the least possible option. A mind lying to itself is more weird than finding another mind.

Your bias is clouding your thinking.

RegardsDL

But the evidence you cite (of the CC) is something that happened inside your own mind. And we all know that minds play tricks on us all the time. We are evolved to see stuff that is not there and to detect things that are not real. That is why we have to use logic, evidence and the scientific method to figure out what is really real versus what we think is real.

You see something moving out of the corner of your eye and jump, thinking it was a rat. And then you look right at it and see it is a brown leaf blowing along the sidewalk. Now, according to your way of thinking, it might really have been a rat, and then it cleverly turned itself into a leaf when you looked at it. Possible? I suppose. Probable? Not very.

And as for your telepathy, it could really exist. You and you wife think it does. But it is far more likely that you and your wife have what is called a folie a deux, where two people share the same delusion.

I say that because you admit that it only happened one time and there is no way to go to a lab and test for something like that. Also, of all the millions of people who claim ESP powers, none have ever been scientifically demonstrated, even when tested by people who really, honestly want there to be ESP.[1] However, you can go to a lab and test for a folie a deux, and measure how strongly you and your wife believe in what happened.

Why do people believe in stuff that is not so? There are lots of reasons:

I just read about a local woman who makes money taking tourists around to places where there were horrible crimes, with the idea that the places are haunted with the spirits of the murdered people. She maintains that people's cameras malfunction in these places. I already can tell you that the cameras malfunction at the same rate as random chance, but nobody involved in these tours wants to hear that.

^^^This is at least the second time that you have posted that video of Persinger. It's funny b/c it really seems to show confirmation bias. You are willing to quote anything that supports your assumption and self diagnosis, even if it is a mere hypothesis that has not been independently confirmed, has not had ample time to go through peer review, and has not been demonstrated to an unequivocal degree. Yet you won't do any critical examination of your interpretation of said "divine" experience. Credulity is really a sickness you know.

God is imaginary so my answer is based on something that does not exist.

OK here goes..."God is love...God loves us more than life...God wants us to be in a personal relationship with Him...God has given us free will.........But (there is always a "but") pick incorrectly and you burn forever in pain and fire and all that really bad stuff. That is what a loving God does.

Exactly!Isn't he just so "loving"!!! -Shaffy

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We humans may never figure out the truth, but I prefer trying to find it over pretending we know it.

That is all the evidence I need. I don't care of the evidence against.

With these powers combined, Greatest I am can believe any claim of any kind as true.

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

It will probably be neural science that will perfect lie detection. It all begins in the brain.

Even so it will still only prove you believe you are telling the truth, in other words, you believe your memory of an event is true. It is still not evidence for the actual claimed event.

True for finding the cosmic consciousness but not true in communicating with my wife. That confirmation would clinch it in my mind but if others are not convinced by it there in nothing I can do.

RegardsD

If you firmly believe something (because it really happened, or because you are crazy, or because someone you really trust says it happened, or whatever reason) any brain test, no matter how sophisticated, will show that you think it is true. A lie detector won't help if the person does not know they are "lying". That is why lie detectors don't work on sociopaths and con artists. They are so convinced of their own reality that they are not actually lying.

As for you and your wife, there are cases of shared delusions. You can find accounts of groups of people saying they saw an alien spaceship, or bigfoot or the Virgen de la Guadeloupe, or a unicorn. Does not mean that those things really exist. Just means people brains can work in tandem to produce false positives.

True for finding the cosmic consciousness but not true in communicating with my wife. That confirmation would clinch it in my mind but if others are not convinced by it there in nothing I can do.

There is plenty you can do. If you are convinced that you can communicate telepathically with your wife, then what are you doing just sat there doing nothing about it? If it was me, I'd be hauling myself and my wife down to the nearest university, putting my money where my mouth is and volunteering to become a guinea pig. I could change the world and make one of the biggest discoveries ever. I'd be rich! I'd be famous! But no, you're sat around resting on your laurels. I don't believe you're as convinced as you say you are.

This reminds me of mediums (the ones who are deluded themselves and not the con-artists) who are convinced they can talk to dead people, but do the vast majority of them put themselves forward for testing? - Nope. Why? - Because they know they'll fail. Of course that is not their fault, but the test conditions.[1]

^^^^What happened in that simple controlled experiment is what always happens. The psychic energy fails to manifest.

And it is always the fault of the scientists, who are so biased and closed-minded that their skeptical energy blocks that psychic energy of the mediums. "There are skeptics and unbelievers present! My powers will not work. Darn."

There is a video online of Johnny Carson[1] taking apart a famous psychic on his show. It it quite amazing how a few simple rules made it impossible for the psychic to perform.

The scientists 1)organized this test and 2)invited the mediums to participate and 3)arranged for a group of volunteers and 4)gave the mediums a chance to show their stuff. Really closed-minded, that.

If only the people who believe in this stuff were willing to be as "closed-minded" as the scientists-- who are willing to take the psychic claims seriously enough to examine them for real.

True for finding the cosmic consciousness but not true in communicating with my wife. That confirmation would clinch it in my mind but if others are not convinced by it there in nothing I can do.

There is plenty you can do. If you are convinced that you can communicate telepathically with your wife, then what are you doing just sat there doing nothing about it? If it was me, I'd be hauling myself and my wife down to the nearest university, putting my money where my mouth is and volunteering to become a guinea pig. I could change the world and make one of the biggest discoveries ever. I'd be rich! I'd be famous! But no, you're sat around resting on your laurels. I don't believe you're as convinced as you say you are.

This reminds me of mediums (the ones who are deluded themselves and not the con-artists) who are convinced they can talk to dead people, but do the vast majority of them put themselves forward for testing? - Nope. Why? - Because they know they'll fail. Of course that is not their fault, but the test conditions.[1]